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Weekly activity update
National Youth Development Trust
October 19, 2011

Full council meeting

The Bulawayo Youth Council met on Wednesday 12 October 2011 held a Full Council Meeting. The meeting saw the different committees in the youth council giving updates on what they had done for the month as well as the different youth councilors sharing notes on the various community initiatives they had undertaken in their wards. These included clean up campaigns, sporting activities and youth discussions on different issues. Some youth councilors had already mobilized youths to register to vote with the assistance of NYDT and the mobilization was said to continue as voter registration is an ongoing process. It was also highlighted that the term of the youth councilors would soon come to an end and elections would be held before the end of the year

Think tank

On Thursday October 13 some youths met at a think tank meeting to deliberate on the topic "Accessibility of the Youth Fund: views from the youths". Most of them were disgruntled by the selection criteria of beneficiaries of the fund which they said was partisan. They also said that the ministry is confining applications to agricultural projects like poultry which are not attractive to youths. They said that since the fund is meant for young people it should then leave room for creative projects that are not necessarily limited to agriculture which they said was for older people. They highlighted that such restrictions are clear indicators of the partisan nature of the fund, indicating that empowerment through agricultural projects was Zanu PF policy, a party that the minister belongs to. This, they said, meant that the fund was simply meant to be an extension of party interests not national policy.

Democracy and Human rights Arts Festival

More than 200 young people thronged Nkulumane Hall for the Democracy and Human Rights Arts festival to witness various artistic presentations under the theme "Inculcating a culture of proactive youth participation." The Festival, hosted by National Youth Development Trust (NYDT) brought together young artistes from Bulawayo and Gwanda. These included Jahunda Community arts who staged 1983: the years before and after, a play focused on National Healing, Reconciliation and Transitional Justice. Victory Siyanqoba also performed a play entitled "Time-Up", whose main thrust, was to encourage young people to participate meaningfully in elections. Other artistes who scintillated audiences with informative artistic presentations included stand up comedians Ntando and Clive, Poet Mgcini Nyoni, GDA a musical group as well as Isazi dance group. Some of the art forms showcased were Music, Dance, Theatre and Poetry. The various art pieces were modeled in a way that depicts the aspirations of the Zimbabweans about the current human rights and democratic mirage. The arts festival was held as part of the Ideas festival 2011.

Democracy fair exhibition

NYDT had the opportunity to interact with young people from Bulawayo during a democracy fair exhibition held under the Ideas festival. The exhibition, held at the White City arena provided the organisation with an opportunity to share information with the youths on services that the organization's information centre offers, programmes that it carries out throughout Matabeleland, paying particular attention to the voter registration programme that is targeting first time voters. The exhibition also awarded the organisation with an opportunity to interact with other CSOs from different regions of the country and share information materials for the different information centres.

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